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Finance Minister Bill English will not budge on his plan to veto a bill extending paid parental leave from 14 weeks to six months, even if the estimated costings are less than first calculated, he said last night.

"This is a desirable policy but it's not our top priority," he said.

Mr English said he was not prepared to borrow more to fund it when the Government had already borrowed to increase Working for Families by 5 per cent on April 1 this year in a cost-of-living adjustment.

The top priority for families had been maintaining income support and increasing early childhood education.

The payments, of up to $475 a week, would remain but it would be phased in by four weeks a year over three years.

Ms Moroney agreed yesterday that deciding whether to fund paid parental leave was a matter of priorities but said it would be of greater benefit than $1.76 billion being spent on the Puhoi to Wellsford highway.

The week the bill was drawn from the ballot Mr English gave notice he would exercise his financial veto on it to prevent it being passed into law. He has estimated the cost to be an extra $450 million over its first four years, or $300 million over three years, vastly different from a new figure of $166 million extra for three years estimated by Infometrics in work commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

The discrepancy emerged at the select committee yesterday considering the bill when MBIE officials appeared before it in private. The gap had narrowed somewhat by the end of the day. Both estimate that the extra cost annually when fully implemented would be $150 million and $145 million respectively.